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Galveston, oh, Galveston

18 September 1999

It never rains but it pours. After the success of The Perfect Storm,
an exquisite tale of catastrophe at sea, comes the landlubber’s sequel,
Isaac’s Storm: The Drowning of Galveston by Erik Larson. Ninety-nine years
ago this month Galveston succumbed to a storm that killed up to 10 000 citizens.
It is still the worst natural disaster in the US. Not least for Isaac Cline, the
local weatherman who failed to hoist the storm cones. Larson’s gloss is that
turn-of-the-century meteorologists believed even more than today’s crop that
they could predict the weather. But really this is just a meticulous piece of
journalistic reconstruction. Great for a wet autumn evening, when the wind
begins to howl. Published by Fourth Estate, £16.99, ISBN 1857028414.